Cliff jumping in all its various forms, including deep water soloing, has recently been banned by the Army Corps of Engineers. The penalty is a $5000 fine, though it is unclear to me if it's being rigorously enforced. Does anyone have info about this?

I signed the petition. Just ask yourself what would George Washington do? This should go to a local vote and let the people decide. It should be stated that climb/swim at your own risk, and made illegal for people to sue for injuries.

No wonder why the majority of kids today are fat, and get in trouble with the law, bring guns to school etc. Americans are no longer allowed or encouraged to enjoy life's simple pleaseures.

It should be stated that climb/swim at your own risk, and made illegal for people to sue for injuries.

Only if liability was that easy. The Army Corps of Engineers is clearly just covering themselves from future lawsuits.

Dave Fiorucci wrote:

No wonder why the majority of kids today are fat, and get in trouble with the law, bring guns to school etc. Americans are no longer allowed or encouraged to enjoy life's simple pleaseures. Is this America or do we live in Nazi Germany?

I think this might be taking it to far, but point taken. There is a line between allowing people to make stupid choices and dictating what they can or cannot do. It seems to me that The Army Corps of Engineers took this one too far.

It should be noted that The Army Corps of Engineers is in no way directing this new law against rock climbing or climbers, it is clearly directed towards tourists who get drunk and make bad descisions while atop cliff that may not be safe to jump from. They just don't want to give people the go-ahead to do something stupid.

This is and has been pretty dumb, IMO. The best thing about Summersville Lake is going there in the dead of summer, climbing until you grease off the holds and then jumping in the lake and swimming the sweat off. You can't pass any laws against stupidity, people will Darwin themselves no matter what the rules say. Maybe we should put up railings with signs all around the lakes or make anyone within 100 yards wear a life jacket...

I also wanted to mention this ban covers another lake in the southern region which has excellent DWS. Enough that it looks like it might have become a great summer destination for climbers who would contribute to the local economy by renting pontoon boats, buying gas, etc.

Ladd, I hope for your sake you donít get caught. I wouldnít want to see anybody pay $5000, and or spend some time in the slammer over swimming in a lake. Maybe the law was made to prevent drunken rednecks from showing up with a beach blanket and a case of beast. But shouldn't local law enforcement take care of a problem like this with the current laws that are in place? Maybe I was taking it too far with my comment, but letís check with somebody who did get slapped with the fine.

I thought this petition was a good idea... just now, however, I dug a bit deeper and discovered that the petition sponsors are two high school aged boys. This may be the reason for the numerous grammatical errors.

I tried getting in touch with them to correct the problems and find out what will happen to this petition. Their only contact info is through their MySpace page. I don't have an account, and therefore cannot contact them.

I guess it's better to sign the petition with the errors, than not at all, but could someone with a MySpace page get in touch with:

man, i can't beleive this... people have been jumping around there since the 80s, probably earlier. this sort of tourture is not american! someone send the army general a copy of king lines, or maybe we could get sharma to go and ward off the army!

This is really sad. The New/Summersville was the place I would road trip to the most when I lived in Ohio. Some of my fondest climbing memories are climbing right out of the water, topping out, if I was lucky, and then getting myself pumped up to jump. In fact, I still have a picture on my refrigerator of me diving in the pirates cove area. Everybody who comes over to my place always comments on the photo. They can't believe that there's a place like this in West Virginia. It's really unfortunate that this has been outlawed. Personal responsibility is becoming a thing of the past in this country. I guess all those lectures I got from my dad growing up on being accountable for my actions were for nothing. Spill hot coffee on yourself. Sue McDonald's.

Dave, breaking the law at Gross Res? I'm a cliff jumpin criminal as well. This past weekend Vail had lots of the crystallized water to jump into. Cliff jumping is not a crime. Cliff jumpers are not criminals. Maybe just a little crazy.

A little of topic here, but does anybody know of any places out here in Colorado where one might partake in this sort of unlawfulness.

There's a 90 footer (depending on water level) on Blue Mesa Reservoir just west of Gunnison. We used to wear tennis shoes when we jumped, I slapped my arms once and had strange bruises all along my underarms for quite a few weeks.

There's also about a 40 or 50 foot jump off of the bridge (again dependent on water level) at the west end of the res.